A Troubling Visit to Mt. Zion

King David

The Tomb of King David may be the only site we visited that made me feel like I needed to go to confession!  I am ashamed to admit that we were not very reverent.  I know this sounds really strange, but it felt fake to me.

First of all it didn't make sense to me at the time that the tomb of such a famous Jewish king was literally in the basement of a Catholic church.  Thinking back, being below the modern ground does make sense in that they probably built a church over the top of it, and then another over the top of that.  So it makes perfect sense now....

But at the time it wasn't clicking for me.

Actually, research after returning home says that "The tomb is located in a corner of a room situated on the ground floor remains of the former Hagia Zion a ancient house of worship; the upper floor of the same building has traditionally been viewed as the Cenacle of Jesus."  (that's the "Upper Room"!

Maybe that contributed to my confusion at the time, but looking back, why wouldn't God's Providence put his son's last meal, such an important event, over the resting place of one of his chosen men?).

After going through a dark hallway, they took us to what seemed like a back room.  It was really like a storeroom or something. There wasn't any sign or indication that there was on-going construction or that it was a temporary exhibit.  To tell the truth, I thought we were taking some kind of shortcut through the building. It was like we were backstage or something. 

Women's Entrance to the Tomb of King David

Anyway, we entered a room that was divided by a make-shift looking wall of bookcases.  There was a small table with paper yamakas for the men. I think at that point I was thinking “what is this?  Where are we exactly?”

The men in our group got very silly at this point and began to snicker and giggle about wearing the headgear.  There wasn’t any sign telling women to cover their heads. 

The men went left.  Women walked forward through the arched doorway in the picture above.

Men's entrance to the Tomb of King David

We walked past a couple of mis-matched desks pushed up against the wall across from some random and mostly empty bookcases.  Going through a broken-looking door with exposed concrete and gravel on the floor, we entered another storeroom.  What a mess!  Past the haphazard curtains into a third room.

This last room was divided by a heavy dark curtain.  We women were on the smaller side, maybe only 1/3 of the actual size of the room.  In front of us was a partial casket draped in maroon velvet sticking out of the divider.

We were so crammed in there that we could hardly move.  (There were around 20 of us). We couldn’t see over the curtain but we could hear Hillel talking, although I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

About that time an arm shot up over the partition and FLASH!  Someone took a picture.

We heard someone on the other side of the room begin giggling so I held up my digital camera and shot a picture of the other side.

Everyone wanted to see.  Course, it was the men from our group milling around in the other 2/3’rds of the room.  Their side wasn't much nicer.  The casket drape on their side of the partition had all kinds of gold symbols embroidered on it.

Well all the wives in our group who were little short women wanted me to take pictures with their cameras cause I’m tall.  The men were sticking their tongues out and making faces and worse, and we got really disrespectful at that point!  It just snowballed!  OH the shame of it!!

I will say that I felt pretty darn silly in that room looking at the foot of a coffin as it stuck through the drapes. Talk about separate but not equal!!  It was like something in the sideshow of a carnival.

Everyone was silly and giggled and got ridiculous about the whole picture-taking-over-the-drapes thing.

Maybe being allotted the foot-end of the casket just seemed so insane when clearly I’ve never experienced any prejudice because I am a woman?  (yes, I know, men and women are not treated equally in foreign countries, but this just felt so ridiculous!).

I just made no connection whatsoever to this place and the King of Israel.  It was like being at a side-show at the fair, and when you walk behind the curtain it’s not a space alien, it’s a deformed set of Siamese-calves floating in formaldehyde.  I felt like i was being suckered or faked out by the shabby feel of the store-room atmosphere.

The Tomb of David, King of Israel

Since returning I've read reviews on King David's Tomb...

 "As a woman traveler I forgot what it is like to be treated like a second class person."

 "Disappointing"

"Too much of a coincidence that the Christian site of the supposed 'upper room' adjoins the place of King David"

"For a site that apparently has such significance to certain people, I found that it was very poorly maintained."

 "I was quite taken aback by being treated like an inferior member of the species, it came as a big culture shock! If you're offended by gender discrimination, I'd suggest to give this place a miss..."

 "If you beleive it - it may be a very powerful experience. If you don't connect on the emotional level, it's just a place, an unusually dirty and neglected one, with many odd people and habits"

So it appears I was not alone in any of my thoughts or feelings regarding the site.  But I still feel terrible about the whole thing.  I am sure God was not pleased. This is the tomb of David!  The killer of Goliath!  The writer of the Psalms!  The King of Israel!  The City of David is named for him!

This is a place that is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews.

No, it was not a spiritual experience for me, it was unsettling.  Troubling and disappointing.

2012 Pilgrimage to Israel - Day 8